Planting Ideas
Need a last-minute gift for a gardener? Here are a few of the latest books on the subject, published recently enough so garden friends (or relatives) are not likely to already own them.
My favorite is an elegant book on--of all things--flattened plants. It’s simply titled “The Pressed Plant,” by Andrea Di Noto and David Winter (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, $29.95, 160 pages). Botanists flatten and dry plants in special presses to record and index the plant world. When questions arise about a plant’s botany or nomenclature, it’s off to some university’s herbarium to study the collected specimens. Herbariums are libraries of pressed plants.
Although this is solid science, there are those who see the art in pressed plants, and collect old herbarium specimens that have been freed from their libraries. This book explains how to press plants and covers the related subjects of nature prints and sun pictures--other ways of capturing real plants on paper. The book just might inspire some to start their own herbariums of pressed plants.
Continuing on a natural history theme, there’s a handsome little book, “Conifers of California,” by forester Ronald M. Lanner (Cachuma Press, $24.95 paper, 288 pages), which describes an amazing 52 conifers that grow in the state. All are pictured in photos, plus there are handsome botanical drawings by Eugene O. Murman, a Russian-born furniture designer who lived in Glendale and whose prints are now housed at UCLA. Conifers of various kinds, from the desert junipers to the Bishop pines growing on our offshore islands, often define their geographical areas and respective plant communities, so are well worth knowing.
“Ancient Trees,” by Anna Lewington and Edward Parker (Collins & Brown, $35, 192 pages), is a nicely illustrated look at some true arboreal monsters, such as gnarly examples of really old olives, monkey puzzle trees, baobabs and New Zealand kauri. There are Bavarian limes, ancient Antarctic beeches, hefty European oaks and Amazonian giants, and every tree described is at least 1,000 years old. Some of these old-timers have already made it through four millenniums, so presumably aren’t sweating Jan. 1.
While this coffee-table book will leave viewers oohing and aahing, the next might leave them gasping.
“Gardens of Obsession,” by Gordon Taylor and Guy Cooper (Sterling, $40, 192 pages), is a bit of a misnomer, since you can perhaps call a wall of hubcaps with a pile of blue bottles a “landscape” but hardly a “garden.” The book is subtitled “Eccentric and Extravagant Visions” and provides some really strange and sometimes wonderful creations, more than 150 of them from around the world. There is a gnome landscape from Ireland, flowery birds in Germany, amazing tile structures in Spain, topiary in Ecuador and, of course, a few offbeat selections from California.
Most people’s idea of a garden is probably better represented in “Shocking Beauty,” by Thomas Hobbs (Tuttle, $34.95, 160 pages). Hobbs is a Vancouver, Canada, nurseryman and designer whose own garden, built around a 1930s Mission Revival Spanish house looks as if it should be in Southern California. As a gardener, he likes breaking rules and trying daring combinations, and this book is illustrated with examples of bold pairings from around the world, some of which are applicable here (a few of the gardens pictured are in California).
Not your typical English gardening book, “Designing With Plants,” by Piet Oudolf with Noel Kingsbury (Timber Press, $34.95, 160 pages), is a sumptuous look at gardens that depend upon the form, texture and even the movement of plants as much as color. Oudolf is a cutting-edge Dutch designer, Kingsbury an equally bold English designer, and while most of what is shown and described are poor choices for plantings in Southern California, the ideas for combining and using plants are worth studying, and the photographs are hauntingly lovely.
“The California Landscape Garden,” by landscape architecture professors Mark Francis and Andreas Reimann (University of California Press, $29.95 paper, 272 pages), is a scholarly but readable look at the ecology, culture and design of gardens in the Golden State. It takes a new approach to the subject in that the authors suggest that gardens should be based on the natural environment, not on the whim of the gardener or designer. Theirs is an ecological approach to garden making and design.
If I were guessing what gardens would be like in the next millennium, my guess would be that they would go in this more natural direction. Not many of these new eco-gardens have been built, however, as the dearth of photographs in this book hints at, but what is shown is cutting-edge stuff from designers like Topher Delaney, Owen Dell, Ann Christoph and Rick Fisher. This book will probably appeal most to serious gardeners who already have a sizable library, always the hardest to buy for (or so says my wife).
Perhaps there is someone you know who prefers flowers-after-the-fact, so to speak, as in “Dried Flowers,” by Jan and Michael Gertley (Taunton Books, $24.95, 210 pages). It shows the processes involved, lists some likely candidates and shows many handsome examples of dried flowers put to use.
For stocking stuffers, there are two new paperbacks on animals that frequent gardens. “The Hummingbird Garden,” by Mathew Tekulsky (Harvard Common Press, $12.95, 118 pages), first published in 1990, suggests what to grow to attract hummers, and how to appreciate and feed them. The information is especially useful because Tekulsky lives in Los Angeles.
In the feeding chapter, you find the important but little-known warning not to use honey, but plain white granulated sugar in a 4-1 mix with water, and that red food coloring is not necessary and may be harmful.
I’m sure there’s someone on your Christmas list who could use “Outwitting Deer,” by Bill Adler Jr. (Lyons Press, $14.95, 192 pages), judging by all the mail I get on the subject. There are no easy fixes, but this book looks at all the possibilities.
For that armchair gardener who doesn’t want to be bothered by deer or even weeding, there are several new books designed just to be read.
“Gardens of the Imagination,” edited by Sophie Biriotti (Chronicle Books, $24.95, 144 pages), is an anthology of fiction and poetry that includes gardens “dreamed into being” by their authors.
“A Contemplation Upon Flowers,” by Bobby J. Ward (Timber Press, $24.95, 446 pages), is a look at common flowers in myth and literature.
This column runs Thursdays. Write to Robert Smaus, SoCal Living, L.A. Times, Times Mirror Square, L.A., 90053; fax (213) 237-4712; e-mail robert.smaus@latimes.com.
